Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner holds a plaque to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1982 war between Argentina and the Britain over the Falkland Islands. / Juan Mabromata, AFP/Getty

by Kim Hjelmgaard, USA Today

by Kim Hjelmgaard, USA Today

LONDON â?? Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the president of Argentina, has written a forceful open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, attacking the United Kingdom's "blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism" over the Falklands Islands, and urging him to keep to the terms of 1965 United Nations resolution to "negotiate a solution" to the disputed territory.

The letter, which was published as an ad in both The Guardian and The Independent newspapers, is the latest act of bad feeling between the two nations who went to war in 1982 over the islands located in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

"The Argentines on the Islands were expelled by the Royal Navy and the United Kingdom subsequently began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule," she writes in the letter published today, a copy of which was also sent to Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

"Since then, Britain, the colonial power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing it from restoring its territorial integrity," the letter adds. "In the name of the Argentine people, I reiterate our invitation for us to abide by the resolutions of the United Nations."

However, a spokesman for Cameron told the BBC that "the people of the Falklands had shown 'a clear desire to remain British' and their interests would be protected."

January 3 is the anniversary of the Falklands becoming a British territory in 1833.